Napa Trip

Saturday we had planned a trip to Napa to have a tour and barrel tasting at the St. Supery winery. My parents are members of their wine club as well as Tim and I so we thought it would be fun.

Robin, Kenny, Mom and Dad all met us at our house on Saturday morning, weather was clear and sunny even though there was mention of rain in the forecast. We all jumped into my parent's mini van and headed up north. We packed breakfast for the road, which I think is always a must when taking a long drive in the morning. We had hard boiled eggs, bagels with cream cheese and left over pecan bars from Thanksgiving. As we got to Napa the sky turned a dark grey and before we knew it we arrived at the winery in Rutherford and it was pouring! We went inside and got warmed up just in time for our tour start in the coldest part of the facility.We learned about harvest, process time, barrels, and then we got to taste straight from the barrel. We had a great guy (Ryan) showing us around, he was a good sport, we are all a little crazy and he dealt with us really well.We tried a couple different varietals from the barrel and then got to make our own blend by telling Ryan how much of each wine we wanted in our glass, it was super fun and mighty tasty. After the barrel tasting we got to go to the members only Divine tasting room and continued to taste some of the wonderful wines St. Supery has to offer. They just kept lining them up, I had to stop, I was the driver and all.

After drinking our weight in wine, we got back in the car, ate some more from our breakfast box and headed to St. Helena for a walk around the shops and lunch at Cindy's Backstreet (which I super love thanks to Wendy). Hey, is that Robin in the window?

After lunch we went over to Mumm, we heard that they had a great photo exhibit that included some Ansel Adams plus I love being surrounded by bottles of sparkling wine. The photos were pretty cool, I really enjoyed them, the photographers name was Art Rogers and he does family portraits. The exhibit was full of family photos taken at one point in time and then at another point in time years later in the exact location so one could have been taken in 1985 and then the other in 2010, such a cool concept. Click here to check out his website, click on the "yesterday/today" tab, that is what we saw.

When we came out of the exhibit the sky was just incredible, check it out, this photo doesn't even do it justice. Can you see the face in the C curve, so cool (think of the dark part as sideburns and a beard). It is when the sky turns amazing colors like this where all I can think is God is Good.After Mumm, we hit the road and headed back to the city. Mom and Dad went back to their hotel and Kenny and Robin drove home. I think we all slept pretty good that night. It was a great day.